Kavasch, Barrie. 1979. Native Harvests. Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian. Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York.
The dried leaves provide as astringent winter tea with a pleasantly bitter taste.
Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
RHAMNUS PURSHIANA, BEARBERRY
is a plant of North America. The purple berries are much esteemed among the Indians.
is a plant in the Northern temperate regions. Cultivated in gardens for its flowers. A narcotic poison, aconite, is the product of this species and the plant is given by the Shakers of America as a medicinal herb. In Kunawar, however, the tubers are eaten as a tonic.
Excerpted and Modified from Kavasch, Barrie. 1979. Native Harvests. Recipes and Botanicals of the American Indian. Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York.
BEARBERRY, KINNIKINNICK, MEALBERRY, UPLAND ENVWEEY (ARCTOSTAPHYLOS WA-URSI) is a widely distributed member of the heath family. Bearberry is a trailing, perennial shrub with green, odorless, leathery foliage. Pink, inconspicuous, bell-like blossoms in termainl clusters ripen in autumn to dull red-orage berries. The blandly dry, red berries are good survival food raw, but improve in taste with cooking, especially when mixed with other fruits. The dried and pulverized leaves have been an interesting frontier tobacco for centuries, both alone and in "herbal tobacco" smoking remedies, as learned from the Indians. The dried leaves are also used for an astringent winter tea with a pleasant bitter taste considered soothing to stomach digestion.
Excerpts for each from Hutchens, Almar R. 1992. A Handbook of Native American Herbs. Shambhala, Boston.
Common Names: Upland cranberry, arberry, mountain cranberry, mountain box, ubva-ursi
Features: Found in dry, sterile, sandy soil and gravelly ridges of North America south to Mexico in 3000-9000-foot altitudes.
The perennial evergreen shrubs is recognized by large mats of low-growing ground cover. The urn-shaped flowers are white and sometimes tinged with red, flowering from June to September, followed by red lustrous berries of the winter season. The green leaves should be picked and dried in the autumn.
The name is also applied to other plants, such as Ilex decidua, a shrub of the southern United States.
Uses: The leaves were mixed with tobacco leaves by Native Americans and called kinnikinnick. More important was their use of it as medicine to treat inflammations of the urinary tract, especially cystitis.
Bearberry is among the herbs useful in diabetes for excessive sugar. Particularly useful in chronic diarrhea, dysentery, profuse menstruation, piles, spleen, liver, and the pancreas, profuse menstruation, piles, spleen, liver, and the pancreas. Outstanding curative influence for diseases of the urinary organs, more especially in chronic affections of the kidneys, mucous discharges from the bladder, and all derangements of the water passages. Old cases of leukorrhea and chronic urethritis will be releived by its use, a valuable assistant in the cure of gonorrhea of long standing, whites, ulceration of the cervix uterus (neck of the womb), pain int he vesicle region, etc. Can be used internally and also as a douche.
